This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement

Union workers strike for piece of imperialist pie

by mim52@mim.org

On October 15, 2001 more than 800 United Auto Workers members went on strike at military tank production facilities in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The so-called workers walked the picket line for better health care and pensions within one week of Amerika's military strikes against the people of Afghanistan.

General Dynamics Land Systems is profiting from increasing Amerikan militarism, and the UAW wants to get a piece of that pie. Earlier in the year, General Dynamics Land Systems received a $4 billion dollar deal to design futuristic armored combat vehicles, a $30.4 million dollar contract to upgrade tanks and an army order to build eight heavy assault bridge vehicles. With the announcement of Amerika's so-called war on terror, the company and its employees stand to benefit a great deal from Amerika's increased militarism.

Some called the strike unpatriotic because of its opportunist timing, but MIM sees this as exemplary of core Amerikan values. Just about every employment opportunity in Amerika is backed by super-profits from Third World exploitation. Amerikans do not earn the value of their labor -- they get paid more than the value of their labor. Amerikan paychecks are subsidized by imperialist super- exploitation. Militarism enables this super- exploitation.

It's not that we think that these workers would be better internationalists if they instead worked at Ford Motor Company and went on strike. Rather, their strike demonstrates the reactionary character of workers living off the backs of others. Instead of striking against the production of tools of destruction and war, or even joining in the protests against the war, the so-called workers are standing up for larger profits. Profiting from death is currently the Amerikan way, but the movement to end this continues to grow.

Struggles against imperialist war, global environmental destruction, Third World debt, etc. are part of this movement and worthy of our support. Economic struggles led by war- mongering unions are not.

Note:
http://www.freep.com/money/business/strike16_20011 016.htm